


Emberfall

by Linderosse



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-05-12 03:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19220278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linderosse/pseuds/Linderosse
Summary: You are a fire and he is a river.The story of Maedhros, told in four parts.





	1. Chapter 1

You are young and naïve, and your red hair flows behind you in the wind when you run. Your little brother likes the color, so you keep your hair long, like your mother and her father before her. They say it’s a reminder of the flame inside you.

You think you like that, although you don’t feel like a flame yet. You’re just an ember, compared to the roaring blaze that is your father.

Your father laughs when you tell him that. Give it time, he says. You can’t help but hope.

\----

You meet Fingon at a royal ball, and the first thing you notice about him is the color of his eyes. They’re blue, like a deep river. His tunic and robes match, all in cerulean, and when he sees you his eyes go wide and he smiles and he looks like he wants to talk.

But you are older now, and cautious of his family. Besides, your youngest brother has just run off crying, and you must attend to him right this moment or he will surely get himself in trouble. You nod a polite greeting at Fingon and leave. You don’t see it, but his gaze is trapped in your red, flame-like hair as you turn away.

You don’t know it, but this is the first of many times you will leave Fingon behind.

\----

Your younger brother is studying music.

Your younger brother is an amateur tracker.

Your younger brother is practicing economics.

Your younger brother is an apprentice craftsman.

Your youngest brothers are interested in medicine.

They are, all of them, embers, coals, waiting for a spark. Someday, your father tells you, you will all grow into wondrous blazes, just like him. He says this less often now, as he is busy working on creating a new spark. Or rather, preserving an old one.

\----

Fingon isn’t a flame or an ember: he’s a bubbling stream, laughing and tumbling and falling all over himself. You hate to admit it, but you begin to cherish the time you spend with him-- playing in the fields, talking together, quietly, his cool hand brushing yours. He sighs and pulls you closer with the lightest of touches, and you can do nothing to resist that gravity.

He isn’t a fire like you and your family, but he glows all the same.

\----

The sparks are made, three of them, and something about your father is different. The light of his flame burns brighter and yet darker at the same time. You aren’t sure what to make of it, but it falls to you now to calm your father’s injured soul as he reaches out to scorch those that he perceives as a threat.

You make no difference, because you are just a lowly ember, still. Your father burns the wrong people. He is exiled. You and your brothers follow, because you are all just embers, and what use is one ember alone?

You leave Fingon behind for the second time.

\----

The Darkness arrives.

The Darkness arrives, and you are powerless, and you wouldn’t care if your own light was snuffed out, not at all, but _your brothers are in danger!_

You gather them to you and run.

\----

Words are spoken that you cannot take back. They brand themselves in your soul and you can almost feel them, like a black oil has been poured over your spirit. Then that oil begins to spark and burn, and suddenly, you too are a fire, not as hot and bright as your father but a fire all the same.

You remember wanting this as a child, craving the responsibility.

You are not sure that you like it, now that you have it.

\----

You are a fire, fighting on the shores of the sea.

Briefly, you remember the feeling of Fingon’s hand in yours, and the memory of that cool touch grounds you as you slip your sword neatly into a mariner’s throat.

\----

You are a fire, and your father’s fire is growing darker and more dangerous by the second, explosive materials mixed in with the once comforting hearth glow.

He reaches out with one great blazing hand. The flames around him spread out in a large wave and suddenly, the ships you crossed the ocean with are on fire.

You could have joined them in their heated rage: your family, down by the ships, burning brightly as they throw off glittering sparks which catch on sails and wood. But you have a memory to cool you down— the memory of a bubbling river which laughed and smiled with you, and that river still winds around the pathways of your soul. You speak out for its valor, in its name, but you go unheard. Powerless, as always.

You stand aside.

You are leaving Fingon behind for the third time.

\----

Your father’s seemingly inexorable blaze is flickering out, just like that, in an explosion and a hundred thousand years and in the blink of an eye.

The words you repeat at his deathbed are far too familiar to you, considering that you’ve only spoken them once before. The dark oil of them is a source of fuel to your crackling fire, and you and your brothers swear revenge.

It is not enough to keep your father alive. He crumbles to ashes in your arms.

\----

You parley with the Lord of Darkness.

\----

And you are but a candle compared to his might.

\----

Years and years and years-- how long has it been? It is not warm here, not at all, but your body still blazes with pain, aching pain and cutting sharp wounds that are littered across your ravaged skin. You can’t feel your hand anymore. You haven’t been able to feel it for years now, you think. But you can still imagine the touch of a cool river in your palm, washing away the pain and the aching and the loss.

It doesn’t wash away the regret, but you don’t think anything can.

\----

You beg the river to kill you, twice, but it is crying and you know that your river shouldn’t be crying so you don’t ask again. Your river has always known what you want, though, and it has nocked an arrow to its bow, and it is screaming something, and it is… rising?

\----

The wind brings your river to you.

\----

It isn’t the pain of losing your hand that finally tips you over into unconsciousness.

It’s the relief at the feeling of your river holding you in its cool embrace, begging you not to let yourself fall to darkness. You want so much to listen to your river, but you cannot, and your mind slips away.

And if your river is colder, much colder, than it was before, you do not notice.

\----

You have been beaten and melted and broken, but the fire of life within you, your father’s fire within you, is not extinguished.

You thought it _was_ extinguished, for the first few months, but Fingon proved you wrong with his rippling laughter and his rapid queries and light, cool touches to your remaining hand, letting you know that it’s okay, you can learn, you can try again and allow yourself to feel.

You think you would have burnt out, if not for him and if not for your brothers, who shelter you and keep you close to their hearts so you can relight yourself with their flames.

You do not thank them.

They do not mind.

\----

You are preoccupied, and you do not notice that over the years between your youth and now, Fingon froze solid.

You do not notice that he is guarded around you at first, and that his smile fragments into icy splinters when it is approached the wrong way.

You especially do not notice that, as you are dependent on him, he too is dependent on you, leaning in close and thawing himself out, drop by drop. He grasps your hand tightly as you sleep and hyperventilates over what might have happened and what is yet to come. Still, he is the one that hushes and comforts you when you wake up screaming at night.

The frozen parts of him melt and merge and flow and one day his blue eyes look at your red hair which is growing back now, and you are both alive again.

\----

There is still that black oil around you and your brothers. It was meant to be a source of power, but you are finding it difficult to use it for its intended purpose when all it does is remind you of your father and a cliff and your sword through a mariner’s throat.

\----

You place your crown aside.

You and your brothers are flames, and would only heat the crown to the point of melting, disfiguring it beyond recognition, cursing it to scorch all those who depend on it. You give the crown to Fingon’s father instead. He is a calm, clear lake, and will keep the crown well.

\----

You leave Fingon for the fourth time, by the row of whispering trees at which you told him you would give his family the crown. Your brothers are with you, and his siblings are with him. You are going off to blaze your own trail, to satisfy the curiosity that lingers still within some of your brothers, and to reduce the chance of sparking a conflict between your people and Fingon’s, because Fingon is staying behind.

Fingon’s father speaks a formal farewell. You are not listening: you are too busy staring at Fingon’s eyes, which are turbulent storms, whitewater rapids caught in liquid pools. You don’t know what has him so agitated.

You speak your farewells, and promise to visit often. The storm in Fingon’s eyes clears up, and the stoic mask he had worn melts away.

He breaks procedure to step forward and wrap you in a tight embrace. Your arms rise of their own accord to hold him back, and he draws himself closer, huddled within your warmth but still shivering imperceptibly, as if you were already far away. In this moment, you are overwhelmed with a thousand things that you have no hope of ever saying, for more reasons than you could ever count. You run your one remaining hand over his arm, committing the feeling to memory and preparing yourself to let go.

He has never been the type to follow rules.

You have never been the type to break them.

You set off into the great unknown with your brothers beside you. You do not look back.


	2. Chapter 2

You arrive at the Festival of Reuniting, and there is gladness sparkling in the air as you would never have imagined a few years ago. Your oldest younger brother, a talented and kindhearted singer, makes a new friend. Together, he and his friend set the audience alight with their song, and you glow with pride at how far he has come since he was a child spinning melodies by the hearth fire in the home of your youth.

You remove yourself from the festivities early, claiming illness. Your oldest little brother gives you a look that the both of you know well, and Fingon, as you expected, finds you in your tent.

His smile is wider than ever, and you compare the rushing stream that he used to be to this forceful river that he has become. He laughs and tells you everything that has happened since you left. You nod and listen and let his words pull your souls together, though you know you will be parted from him in just a few days more.

\----

At night he refuses to leave your tent and instead sleeps beside you, in the space between your chest and the world outside, a river rising around you, sheltering you from harm. You should be asleep, but you are awake and burning with an unnameable emotion. You think you could stay like this forever.

One day left before you leave.

It is at times like these that you wish, selfishly, in the corner of what’s left of your heart, that you were not a fire and were instead a river so that you might stay with him.

But you are a fire. You leave Fingon for the fifth time.

\----

Decades pass in your high fortress in the east, and you stand at the top of the tallest watchtower and let the cold northern air flow past you unhindered because it reminds you of Fingon.

When you tell him this, Fingon shakes his head at your sentimentality. He doesn’t inform you that cold heights should remind you of captivity instead. You are well aware of that fact, and have chosen to ignore it.

\----

Battle plans are made, and you lead the eastern army against the Dark Lord in the North. The war is fierce, but you and your brothers are ready. You break through the northern defenses, press inwards, and join up with the western force.

Your Fingon, your river of courage, is there, and you spin to fight alongside him, back to back as the darkness threatens you, but with him at your side there is no way you can lose.

You are a firestorm and he is a hurricane and the world is yours to take.

\----

There is quiet in your high fortress again, and in all the kingdoms. A long peace begins.

\----

Your younger brother is a renowned musician.

Your younger brother is a skilled hunter.

Your younger brother is an accomplished businessman.

Your younger brother is a master smith.

Your youngest brothers are remarkable healers.

You have grown into blazing flames, all of you, just like your father said. But the oily words of the oath squirm through your consciousness. When it constricts around your hearts, you feel no pleasure in what you have gained through your own hard work. The oil fuels your revenge, but nothing else. You have learned to disregard it, lest you lose yourself to that feeling.

\----

Your oldest younger brother falls in love and marries his sweetheart in the spring.

She too is a river, like your Fingon, although much rougher in your eyes than Fingon ever was— she is more like a patch of glacier, sharp and cold. Your brother gushes to you about her: that she is brilliant, that she was his friend when they studied music by the ocean in their youth, and that when she plays the flute, the sound is more lovely than even the Valar could ever imagine.

You meet her many times as well, and grow to like her for her solid realism. She is not pleased with your brother’s actions, for she was one of those who crossed the Ice and froze inside. However, she grudgingly but truly loves your brother for who he is. In fact, she loves him enough to alter the course of her glacial path, instead flowing with him as he roams his kingdom to keep his people’s spirits alight.

Your brother, once an implacable flame, sheds tears of gladness to see her, and she berates him for his sentimentality. She leaves her home behind and joins your brother the very summer after they are married.

You don’t let yourself wish your river could do the same.

\----

Once every ten years you leave your kingdom behind and ride west. You bow before your uncle, who wears the crown you gave him. You report any occurrences of note, and wait until permission is given to retire for the day.

Then you find Fingon, your river of courage, and he runs to you as if it hasn’t been more than a week since you last met, as if your right hand is still attached and you are young again in your childhood home.

You talk of many things, and this quiet discussion quenches the blazing fires you have had to cultivate within you to inspire your loyal soldiers.

Fingon is a broad, strong river now, and the current is always enough to sweep you off your feet. He takes your remaining hand in his, and that cool touch robs you of all coherent thought. He strokes your flaming red hair, which you have let grow long again in defiance of the enemy. You fall into his presence as though fire and water were never two separate things at all.

\----

Each time, when daylight breaks, you leave him behind once again.

\----

Centuries pass, and all is peaceful. You are the guiding light of the eastern front against the Dark Lord. Your fires burn night and day, and you do not grow complacent.

You do not know it, but the Enemy is gathering his strength.

\----

The Enemy attacks.

\----

The Enemy surrounds you with darkness and you, in your high fortress, are a torch against the night, a beacon of hope for all those around you. You are the last stronghold in the northeast, and you _cannot let the darkness in._

You do not let the darkness in. You _do_ let your oldest younger brother in, and the scant few refugees from his lands, scorched and choking on ash and blood. They, and him, are all that remains of his kingdom, now.

Your oldest little brother is drowned by an internal darkness: his people are in ruins and his wife was lost in the struggle to evacuate his lands. He doesn’t know what became of her. He was a fire, rushing to defend, leading his people, burning brightly against the enemy and retreating with honor when it became clear that all was lost. She was a glacier, sharp but slow, and she is gone.

He burns quietly now, rarely speaks up. He confides in you, once, that he wishes he weren’t a fire so that he could have prioritized what mattered most.

You do not tell him that you have always wished the same.

\-----

You did not know that Fingon thought you were dead— you assumed incorrectly that your messengers made it through the siege to tell him that your stronghold still stands.

As soon as you clear a path to escape the siege, you head west. You find your river again in his rooms in the western capital. When he sees you, he trickles to a halt in shock. Then he bursts into tears. You have only seen him like this once before, when you were on the side of a cliff and he was at the bottom with an arrow held to his trembling bow…

You wrap him in your arms and he cries himself out. You tuck him in bed and try to leave but he doesn’t let you go, so you place yourself beside him and warm his hands up with the heat of your own.

He tells you that he thought you left him behind too.

You want to say you could never do that, but you have already proven yourself wrong many times over, and both of you know it.

\----

You find out that Fingon’s father, the calm lake, is gone. One too many ripples struck out along his surface at odd angles, and he became a raging whirlpool, burdened with grief and loss. He stormed the Dark Lord’s fortress alone and fought bravely for justice.

But he died, and now the age of peace is over and he is not there to deal with the consequences.

\----

Fingon is growing colder and colder.

You are a fire, and you could warm him up, if only you could stay in the west. You have limited time to work with.

You try.

You are not enough. The day comes when you must leave, and you bow before Fingon, who sits on his father’s throne wearing the crown you gave to their family all those years ago. The river that he was is frozen over, a mask against those who tell him he will never be what his father was. The ice over him gives the illusion of calmness. To all those who see him, he looks like his father.

You know there is turbulence under the ice, and you wish you could shatter that mask and calm those swirling waters with your touch.

You do no such thing, because you are already back in the east, standing atop your tallest watchtower. Your oldest younger brother needs your warmth. Your other younger brothers need your guidance. Your people need your fire, for your fire has grown large and tall and burns brightly to counter the evil winds from the north.

You will stay in the east, for you know the rules, and you will not break them.

\----

One of your father’s three sparks, the jewels he poured his life into, has been liberated from the enemy.

You think this is a good thing, at first, but then you feel the black oil within you stirring, restless, pulling at your motivations like an insidious creature.

It is the first time you have considered your Oath as an opposing force, rather than as a source of energy or something to put aside for the moment. You hide how frightened you are at that, because you know that oil has twisted itself irreversibly around not just _your_ soul, but your brothers’ souls as well. You love your brothers and would do almost anything to keep them safe. Even if two of your brothers have been making some… interesting decisions, lately.

Your oldest younger brother notices your fear, but the fire within him burnt out eleven years ago and he is quiet now. He does nothing.

\----

You are running out of ways to keep from noticing the black oil within you. You have resorted to burning it as fuel, as it was always meant to be used, but it replenishes itself infinitely and it does not produce the results you expect. You notice your fire darken, the flames that mark your revenge shadowed with rage. You fear that this is what happened to your father, so you stop.

You notice also that you can stave off thoughts of vengeance with thoughts of your river, your Fingon, and this seems like a much more favorable method. You imagine Fingon beside you, rushing and laughing, in the fields of your childhood home. You try not to think of how he is now: his easy charisma covered by a mask of ice.

You need to find a way to break Fingon’s mask. You need to find a way to relight your oldest younger brother’s spark. You need to _do something._

\----

You orchestrate an alliance.


	3. Chapter 3

You must first meet with Fingon to convince him that an alliance is necessary. You stand alone on the cold stone floor of the throne room, but you warm up to the topic quickly, speaking of strategies to overthrow the enemy, plots to amass the strength of all the free races of Arda and show the enemy what trust can accomplish. As your words become passionate and heated, thin shards of ice crack and fall off Fingon to shatter on the stone floor. Slowly, his mask is breaking.

He begins to rally around himself, then begins to rally others, and his people follow his course gladly. He will join you, and the alliance will succeed, because when Fingon believes in something, he believes in it with all his heart.

He begins to smile again, and you begin to feel a glimmer of hope in your soul.

\----

You can see the plan in your mind, so clearly, as if through a glass window that you just have to unlatch in order to get to the other side.

It’s a simple pincer strategy, with you in the east and Fingon in the west. A wall of water and a wave of fire, crashing together in an explosion that should rend the enemy’s forces in two, and then you and Fingon will surge towards the gates together, unstoppable.

Yet doubt still whistles through the gaps in your assurance.

\----

What if your forces aren’t strong enough? What if this doesn’t work?

You whisper your fears to him in the chill night air and he fixes you with his ocean-blue gaze that sends shivers across your pale skin.

It is better to have tried and failed, he says, than to have never tried at all. The way he looks at you now is the same look, the same determined sadness, that he wore when he cut you free from a jagged cliffside all those years ago.

\----

Many of the nations that should have been your allies have declined their support. You cannot blame them. Fear and doubt sink tendrils deep into one’s soul and are rarely exterminated once they have settled.

You know this better than most.

\----

Yet you do have allies. Some of the dwarves stand with you, a testament to their strong friendship. Men stand with you as well: the Easterlings of your company and of your middle brother’s company, and other Houses of Men that serve Fingon. As for the Elven kingdoms, you have managed to combine the might of most of the Noldor under two banners: yours and Fingon’s.

\----

You travel to Fingon’s court one last time. You spend days on end at a large meeting, with all your allies present, running through strategies, analyzing the strength and mobility of your various forces to place them in the optimal positions.

And then, suddenly, after years of work, your plans are complete.

\----

You find Fingon in his chambers after the meeting, and there is no time to waste and also all the time in the world.

You sit by him and speak of life in your fortress in the east, and he listens.

His fingers are cool, like droplets of water running down the side of a glass of ice. While you talk, those gentle fingers touch the telltale lines of your scars, card through your fire-red hair, and alight upon the misshapen stump of your right wrist, tracing circles around the disfigured and still sensitive tissue there. You have to work to muffle an involuntary gasp.

He can’t possibly know how much his mere presence ignites the fire within you.

But he is smiling at you, coyly, as if you are sharing a secret, and he still hasn’t stopped trailing his slow fingers over your wrist. He knows. He knows, and he is teasing you, that _jerk._

You shove a pillow in his face, because he deserves it.

\----

As you ride away from the west the next morning, you leave Fingon behind. By this point, you have lost count of how many times you’ve done this, and you hate it, you hate leaving him, but you know the rules, and…

...and if Fingon can break the rules, then you can break them too.

You promise yourself something brave and very dangerous: that after this, you will never leave him again.

You do not know it, but you are just a hair’s breadth away from fulfilling that promise.

This is not the last time you leave Fingon behind. This is the second to last.

\----

It is the day of the battle, the day you have been working towards for years on end.

Except it isn’t, because the Easterlings report that a new, unexpected force is attacking from the east. You send your scouts to investigate along with the Easterling troops that reported the incident.

Only the Easterlings return alive: they are carrying the corpse of one of the scouts. The Easterlings tell you that their group was discovered by the enemy, and that the scouts gave their lives to save the Easterlings. They weep in terror as they recount the mercilessness of the Orcs.

You will later discover that their terror, at least, was not a lie.

\----

At the moment, you have decisions to make. There is no time to send another scouting party, and the presence of an unchecked enemy force in the east could spell ruin. You deem it necessary to take a detour.

You will trust that your river in the west can wait two extra days for you to give the signal. You will eliminate this threat, and then return, and the plan will proceed as usual. The enemy, trapped between the fiercest fire and the strongest wave, will not stand a chance. It will be as it has always been.

You march eastward with your army.

\----

 _This_ is the last time you leave Fingon behind.

\----

Word reaches you that the western army is engaged in combat.

How?! Why?! It isn’t possible that Fingon ignored your instructions. Is it?

You are too far away, and there is no threat in the east at all. You have been lied to. You have been thoroughly tricked, and you have only yourself to blame. You would hang your head in shame and repent, except there is no time for that, because the western army is fighting alone and _Fingon_ is fighting alone, and you are _much too far away._

You rush back to him, to be the firestorm that spins around his hurricane, intertwined with the rushing waters, splendid to behold. You hack through countless foes, but there are somehow always more.

\----

You hear a loud cracking noise in your mind, and feel a burst of pain and fear. For that brief moment, you are not you.

You are instead your river, Fingon, facing the lord of the fallen fire spirits.

Your river hacks and thrusts at frightening speeds, but it is not enough. Your river is hit, and backs down with a gasp. Your river is beginning to thin out, water and lifeblood evaporating in the enemy’s unnatural heat. Your river is blocked, constrained from behind; your river is unable to move, forded in, trapped.

Rivulets of blood are dripping into the soil. Pain and defiance flow in equal measure across his face.

The enemy raises its warhammer high above its head, a cruel glint in the dry sunlight. The metal flashes down, your river smiles his rebellious smile one last time, and there is a loud thud and your river is—

Dead.

\----

You have collapsed to your knees in the bloody mire of the battlefield, because your heart has spontaneously combusted within your chest, splattering the charred remains of your hope across your innards. Fortunately, your oldest younger brother is fighting by your side and he defends you as you sit there, frozen.

Your brother asks you what's wrong, but the words take a full minute to penetrate the haze around you.

You have no response. You have no time to rest. You get up and continue to fight in silence.

\----

You call a retreat. It is over.

\----

You are a fire, and you have lost.

No, that is incorrect. You are a fire, and you _are_ lost, lost within a spiral of grief and tears, because everything you stood for, everything you worked for, is gone.

Failure after failure, heaped upon you, until you are crushed under the combined weight, suffocating from lack of air. Your kingdoms are in shambles. Your enemy roams the land.

You flee for your life from the ruins of your greatest accomplishment.

\----

Your younger brother is a despondent elegist.

Your younger brother is a frenzied warmonger.

Your younger brother is a mistrustful cynic.

Your younger brother is a paranoid contriver.

Your youngest brothers are frightened recluses.

You are burning flames, all of you, scorching hot and burning out, a desperate force that reduces enemies to cinders just as surely as you reduce yourselves to ashes.

And you— your river is dead. You are not equipped to deal with this.

\----

You oldest younger brother stays close in the coming weeks, relighting your flame conscientiously every time it threatens to fade. He doesn’t dare speak to you about how he felt when his glacier was lost, but you know he is thinking of it.

\----

You are fortunate that all of your brothers are alive.

There are choices to make. Where will you go? What will you do? Arguments crisscross the table around which you hold your meeting, and you find yourself slipping out of the conversation into a mind-numbing silence that wraps around you and drags you into a pool of familiar black oil…

Your oldest younger brother places his hand on your shoulder, and you snap out of it. You make the decisions, because you must make them. You will survive another day, another night, even if you are no longer quite sure that you want to.

\----

You spend your days eking out a living in the wilderness, trekking slowly towards your youngest brothers’ old fortress, which may or may not still stand. It is your last refuge, and your numbers have decreased to the point where all of your followers combined will still have enough space to live within the fortress walls.

\----

You reach the fortress. It is battered and worn down, but it will do.

You have fallen far from where you stood, atop the highest tower of your eastern stronghold, with a cold wind blowing past you that reminded you of—

\----

Your hunter brother wants to attack the people who stole your father’s spark from the Dark Lord.

Your oldest younger brother, the musician, argues fervently against it.

This discussion has taken place before. Before, the twins were against attacking, and your middle brother found it distasteful as well. Now they have changed sides, all three of them, and your oldest younger brother stands alone.

Your oldest younger brother looks to you in desperation, because he knows, you both know, that if _you_ side with him, there will be no attack. If you command the rest of your brothers to stand down, they will be reluctant, but they will stand down. They respect you, and they love you, and they will listen to you. All you have to do is speak.

But you… you are slipping away. You don’t deserve their respect or their love. You are incompetent, you shouldn’t be trusted with any sort of command; haven’t you proved that already? You are a fire, and that is _not a good thing_ , because _everything you touch will crash and burn_.

You say nothing.

Your hunter brother crows in triumph. It is decided: you will lay siege to the thousand caves to rescue your father’s spark.

Your oldest younger brother whispers brokenly that this will be a bloodbath.


	4. Chapter 4

You stand in the bitter cold at the edge of the thousand caves. You and your brothers form a wall of fire, seven different flames with seven different fates that will eventually spiral into the same pitch-black void.

It is remarkably peaceful here in the woods.

It will not be for much longer.

\----

The battle begins, and this— killing _people_ — is far worse than you remembered.

It is not long before your side takes casualties as well.

\----

Your middle younger brother was stubborn and shy and empathetic, and always blushed when you teased him about his freckles. He dies with an arrow through his eye just as you enter the caves.

\----

Your fourth younger brother was perceptive and sly and rational, and glowed with pride whenever your father so much as smiled at him. An axe embeds itself fatally in his stomach as you fight through the western atrium.

\----

Your second younger brother was bold and charming and brash, although you remember him best wearing a peaceful smile, surrounded by wild animals in the forest. You are not in the throne room when he dies there, with the lord of the caves’s rapier sticking out of his chest like a poker in a fireplace.

\----

And after all that, your father’s spark is _not here._

\----

You are too numb to be horrified at what you have done.

Your oldest younger brother is not numb, not at all— he is staring at his hands in grief. His tears fall onto his open palms and sizzle on his bare skin.

Where are the young princes of the caves?

\----

You are searching for two small children in a monster-infested forest in the middle of winter. It is an exercise in futility, as is most of your life.

Your oldest younger brother watches you return without them two days later. He is kind, and does not remind you that you could have stopped all of this with a word.

\----

If you concentrate, you can still feel the cool, flowing touch of a river on your hand. That feeling wraps around your arm, then your torso and your entire self, surrounding you with understanding and gentle admonishment. You can almost see Fingon in front of you, awash with the blue light that always shone in his soul. He is disappointed with your choices, and he asks you one thing: to stop this madness. Can you do that?

\----

You will try, for him.

\----

But your father’s spark has been sighted in a coastal town and the black oil within you begins to boil.

You tell Fingon, the Fingon that only you can see, that you don’t know how much longer you can hold it off.

\----

Over the next few years, the black oil forms thick claws and reaches into the heart of your fire, slowly tearing your soul apart and grinding the pieces down into burning splinters. You see the dark flames of your sworn word overlaid across your every thought.

You can’t see Fingon any more.

Your brothers are haunted by the Oath as well. Your youngest brothers, the twins, never leave each other’s sight and do not speak in voices louder than a whisper.

It hurts you more than any wound to see your oldest younger brother’s fingers shake so much that he cannot play his harp.

\----

Eternal madness dogs your steps, all of you. The horror of it shakes you to the core, for it is a death more final than anything except perhaps the void you have consigned yourselves to if you fail in your task.

\----

When your repeated messages to the coastal town return unopened, the dark blaze inside you sears your entire being. 

Only one course of action is left to you now.

\----

There is a fire burning on the wooden quays of the coastal town, a fire reducing innocents to cinders as your last remaining soldiers follow you into a third massacre.

As expected, the death toll is staggering.

\----

Your second-youngest brother was quirky and energetic and curious, and used to drive your mother crazy with his incessant questions and harmless pranks. You are not in the eastern quarter when he dies there, lungs punctured by a javelin.

\----

Your youngest brother was calm and understanding and optimistic, and when the seven of you huddled by the fireplace to tell stories, he was always the most avid listener. You find his body at the docks, next to a bloodstained fishing spear. You do not find his head.

\----

You stand atop the tallest cliff of the coastal town, and a cold wind blows past you but you do not feel it because you are coated in blood and black oil. The princess of the caves stands at the edge of the cliff, where the wind howls at her with your brothers’ voices and whips at her hair and dress. She holds your father’s spark to her chest as if it is hers, as if nothing else in this world matters.

You could stab her and take it.

You are not close enough to grab her with your hand, but if you lunge forward with your longsword, your blade will slip neatly through her throat with the grace of dancing flames. And you are prepared: you can kill her, for what is one more sin heaped upon the burning pyre of your morality—

Suddenly, you feel the faint touch of a cool river in your hand, and it grounds you, just as that same imagined touch did centuries ago when you slipped your sword through the throat of a mariner on a faraway coast, the first time you killed someone, the first time you lost yourself. The touch is light and gentle, as it has always been, and you gasp at the feeling, so clear and cold; a shock like you have been dunked in freezing waters, and the black oil is washed away by the memory of someone who would have told you that _this is wrong_ —

The princess of the caves misinterprets your gasp, and she panics. She steps off the cliff. Your father’s spark is clutched in her desperate talons as she falls to the stone-studded ocean below.

\----

Your oldest younger brother is the only brother you have left.

You find him by a burning alleyway, huddled near two children, singing to them quietly and frantically. One of the children is badly wounded, and both are coughing and choking from the smoke. You do not notice that your brother is using his soul to sing, spending the flames of his spirit— the most powerful currency— to knit the children’s wounds and save the one who is dying.

You _do_ notice that when you approach, your brother reflexively shields the children from you.

If you stopped to think what that might mean… but no, it is none of your concern. You tell your brother to forget the urchins and come, quickly. He pleads with you that the injured child will die if he leaves now, and you remind him harshly of everything else he has done, everyone else he has slain.

What is one more death to the pile of corpses littering your steps?

He hesitates, and _this_ is when you notice that something about your brother’s soul is changing.

He is kneeling, crouched on the bloody cobblestones, one hand hovering over the fatally injured child laid out beside him, and he makes a decision of his own. You can tell exactly when he makes the decision, because at that moment the flame in his eyes leaps up again, blazing brightly as it hasn’t since his glacier was taken from him all those years ago.

He turns away from you and continues to sing.

\----

The child’s condition has been stabilized, and your brother’s voice has run out. One child is asleep in your brother’s arms, the other is clutching his tunic and sobbing quietly.

You cannot seem to separate your brother from these children— these strange, pitiable creatures who look like they could be your family.

When you and your brother leave the decimated town, the children come with him.

\----

At first, the children despise you. You could not possibly blame them for that, so you try to stay away. 

This becomes difficult when the younger child makes it his goal to kill you.

You don’t mind being stabbed: you have suffered much worse. You _do_ fear that the child’s brashness will get him killed, which you do not want because it would make your brother very upset.

Instead of discouraging the child’s thirst for vengeance, which would have been the most logical solution, you begin to teach the child the correct way to kill people. The child is young— not even seven years old yet— but he shows your lessons the same avid determination that his twin brother shows your brother’s lessons in songs of power.

\----

The children are nine years old now, and they are not fires, or rivers, or glaciers, or lakes. Instead, they are something entirely different— they are stars, little stars, that flicker and give off light to all who see them.

Their souls sparkle with curiosity as they learn history and music from your brother, and when they are released from their lessons, they run through the corridors and their laughter hangs glittering on the stone walls of the fortress. Their eyes twinkle as they team up to play pranks on your soldiers, and determination gleams in their stance as they practice swordplay under your watchful eye.

They have been through far too much at the hands of you and your people, yet they still glow with happiness when your brother kisses them good night.

\----

And when the younger child smiles in a certain way, when he tilts his head ever so slightly in a question, or when his small, cool hand finds your larger one and holds on for comfort— you are reminded of your river, your Fingon, and a swell of emotion washes over you.

Something about the way the children shine causes the black oil within you to writhe and recede. You do not realize that this is because you love them.

\----

But you have not stopped being a flame, and you have an Oath to fulfill, and you cannot possibly do what needs to be done while the children are still with you.

You and your brother repeat the same arguments every week, every year. You win in the end. You convince him that this is what’s necessary, what’s best for them.

It is not, of course, what’s best for you and your brother, but that does not matter.

\----

You leave the children behind at the border of the new High King’s realm. It is almost sundown. A patrol will find them within the hour. They will be looked after, happy, and safe.

You turn to leave, but your brother is only able to take two steps before he breaks down. The twins are crying as well as they run back to him. He doesn't seem able to speak through the tears, but the twins collapse into his embrace and he holds onto them like they are his lifeline.

You decide you can wait a few minutes more.

It is not the children's fault that they have grown to love flames.

\----

As you and your brother ride away, you look up at the night sky. Clouds block your view, and you cannot see the stars.

There is only darkness ahead.

\----

Years pass in blinding solitude. You and your brother become shadowed blazes, bereft of everything except one all-encompassing goal.

\----

You sneak through the camp of the army from across the sea. You show no emotion as you slaughter the guards, and your brother grabs the box with two of the sparks in it.

After all these years, they are _yours_.

The alarm is sounded. You are nothing but flickering desperation; you will _not_ go down without a fight—

The wind’s herald stops you, cold pity dousing your spirit. You are allowed to walk free, burdened only by the crushing guilt that has dogged your steps for decades.

As you leave, you do not look at the children, your little stars, lest their horrified gazes snuff your soul out entirely.

\----

You walk for what seems like ages. Your brother opens the box. You reach in, and—

You and your brother are fires, but the sparks you have reclaimed are so much hotter, and they know what you’ve done and _your hand is burning_ —

\----

You deserve this.

\----

_Once, in a far-off country, you were young and naïve, and your red hair flowed in the wind as you ran through the fields._

You step closer to a chasm in the earth.

_Once, in a lofty tower, you stood guard over the enemy, a blazing torch against the night._

You take another step.

_Once, in a sunlit castle, you forged an alliance meant to shatter the darkness._

Another step.

A blast of heat from the chasm hits your face as you stare down into molten flames.

Your oldest younger brother, first and last, is clutching his scorched hand and sobbing, not in pain but in grief. He glances up at you and his eyes widen.

You take one last step, into the chasm.

You are falling.

\----

Once, in a shining palace, you met a bubbling brook who laughed with you and fought for you and wrapped his cool touch around your fevered soul. This is the last thought that flits across your mind, a blessed drop of relief as your body starts to burn.

Your name is Maedhros. You were an ember, then a fire, then a blazing flame, and now, you are ashes on the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed my take on the tragic tale of our favorite copper-top. Maedhros is a wonderful character and I really just want Fingon to find him again after death and give him a hug, because Maedhros truly needs it.
> 
> Also, I just wanted to make a quick note here that I do not mean to glorify suicide as a viable solution to severe emotional pain and burden. That being said, suicidal thoughts are not wrong or bad. If any readers experience such thoughts on a daily basis, there are many resources where you may find some relief, or just a non-judgmental space to talk about your emotions. Please call your national hotline number, or reach out to any such resource available to you.


End file.
